


A Cold Calculation

by kleptoandpyro



Series: There's always time to steal [2]
Category: DC's Legends of Tomorrow (TV)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Fix-It of Sorts, Gen, Interlude, M/M, Missing Scene, Post-Oculus (DC's Legends of Tomorrow), Rip Hunter Needs a Hug, Rip Hunter-centric, Stream of Consciousness, Survivor Guilt, Tea, Time Travel, Time Travel Fix-It
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-03
Updated: 2020-03-03
Packaged: 2021-02-28 07:21:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,849
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22979800
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kleptoandpyro/pseuds/kleptoandpyro
Summary: An interlude from '5 Times Rip Knew that Time Hadn't Completely Forsaken Him' in which Rip contemplates his time changing decision, love, fate, history and loss.OrRip and his hate-boner for Time gear up to save Leonard.
Relationships: Past Miranda Coburn/Rip Hunter, Rip Hunter & Leonard Snart, Rip Hunter/Leonard Snart
Series: There's always time to steal [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1653280
Comments: 7
Kudos: 10





	A Cold Calculation

**Author's Note:**

> I'd recommend reading Part 1 of the series before this one.

It is said that History is written by the victors.

And it’s one of those sayings that has been said so often and heard from so many mouths and been written in so many books and spat in so many debates across history that its true orator cannot be known.

Not even by a Time Master.

A phrase which is ever used, ever recycled, reworded, repurposed, revolutionised, _resistant._

It is simply known, an idea with no beginning and no end, an ugly fragment broken from its original foundation, buried by bloodied sand and lost in antiquity, only to be exhumed with finder’s fervor by the changing winds of time, held aloft, then collected, polished and mounted in a glass cabinet in a grand archive for all the world to see...but not to fully _comprehend._

There have been various names plaqued on that cabinet; Napoleon, Churchill, Mussollini. But the dead can’t speak, can’t claim, certainly can’t open the lid and emboss their mark on the metal themselves; but when they can act by means of an ardent follower, a slender hand reaching inside to draw out that fragment, it means the winds of time have exhumed just a little too much, and it might be too late for that ugly glinting thing - that perhaps should’ve remained in the cold, dead earth - to be reburied.

Even by a Time Master.

All Rip knows for sure is that it is _utter bollocks._

“Gideon, run simulation number 152-B.”

“ **Yes, Captain Hunter.** ”

He thinks on the sentence. Steeps in it like the tea leaves left overly long in the teapots on his desk and the more he strains its phrasing, the more the bitter taste builds. 

There are three pots to be exact. Untouched, undrunk. Each having entered a one sided battle with entropy; two already lost, deathly still and dull reminding Rip of the ancient amber from prehistoric trees that entomb within it the memory of something that was once breathing and living.

Something he has forgotten how to do in recent days. In living memory. 

But the aroma of the third pot lingers thinly in the air, the tea still cooling, but not yet cold, standing its ground in the clock-face of impending defeat, stealing back seconds.

He’d find this curious but this blend is a departure from Rip’s usuals, and as such it’s one he’d never fully unlocked, one which remained, remains, unpredictable, with its complex aroma and bittersweet palate, brewed in the thricefold hope of reinvigorating the grey tones of his skin back into that warm beige, reigniting the spark that had been doused wet in his eyes, reanimating him back into Captaincy; a hope that the life evaporated out of him would somehow recrystallise back into bones so that he may also stand steadfast once more.

The paltry march of seconds has never bid Rip any ill will, the unconcerning drop of sand grains insignificant in his lofty intentions.

Not until now, as if somehow watching the process in front of his eyes - the final wisps of steam fading into the ether, the liquid turning the colour of bruises, the last of the condensed droplets falling down the inside of the glass - has finally instilled in him the foreboding respect he always ought to have had.

It’s a needless cruelty to be forced to bear witness. 

Not a third pot. 

Not a _third._

_“The point is, you didn’t lift a finger.”_

He stares unseeing into its stewing depths, the oils beginning to form a shimmering film on the surface. He knows his tea quite well, knows that a significant amount of time must’ve passed for it to get to this stage but the antique clock had given up some time ago and the turquoise shallows of the Timestream swelling and waning beyond the window, ever constant, ever in flux, were no gauge on just how long Rip had lingered here; in this place where no Time was lost, and all Time was gained, every second of every moment passing before his eyes in a bobbing sea of possibility. Precisely every possibility to have ever and will ever occur.

_“You don’t ditch us, we don’t ditch you. Deal?”_

He’s almost grateful for the not-knowing, because as long as he stays in these doldrums of Time, his mind as adrift as the Waverider herself, then he could very easily pretend he’s a different Rip from a different time simply sitting at his desk recalling the day’s events into a journal while tutting at whatever shenanigans he had just stopped his team from committing.

And yet his mind won’t rest, that damned phrase, that jagged ugly thing, still glinting at him in the dark of his periphery.

 _History_.

He had borne it, lived it, _outlived_ it; breathed its air, fled down its many sinuous paths, stood bystander to its atrocities, and felt its wroth firsthand in the deepest chasms of his heart.

History didn’t discriminate; how could it? It was only the memoirs of Time; a force that neither played judge, jury nor executioner yet imprisoned all within its grasp. History didn’t even look down with anything other than indifference at whoever had to fall to their knees so that it may rise up and be seen above the blackening smoke; gave not the slightest hum of judgement to how many voices had to fall silent so that its chorus could be heard above all others; felt no remorse towards the falling of its denizens upon the hard earth as long as a path was left between the bodies for it to move forward.

The rest of the phrase makes his mouth sour even more and he reaches over the cooling pot for a bottle that had lingered there far longer than he; the liquid inside ever cool but eternally blazing, an entropic loophole that he will gladly allow himself to be ensnared within. 

_Victors._

The word immediately feels worn and old like a long standing tapestry hanging in the back of a museum exhibit, adorned with grandiose stories that spoke of heroic acts beset with ancient evil, yet covered in mothballs and missing some of its colour. True victors didn’t exist anymore. Not the ones from the History books. The ones who slayed the serpent, saved the damsel and split the gold among the cheering hordes.

It was true that Vandal Savage was vanquished, the serpent slain, but the damsel had long ago fallen and the hordes would never know that the whole affair had even taken place.

_“There are no strings on me.”_

Rip feels no more a victor than the escapees of some great cataclysm are considered victorious over the raging mountain which lay siege to their homes or the floodwaters which drowned their children. A victorious people do not rejoice as they mourn, cannot weave a tapestry from frayed and burnt thread.

 _History is written by the survivors_ , thinks Rip darkly, and beyond that, _only by those who want to write it._ Because God knows that had he known of the full scale of the trials and the risks and the sacrifice and the _loss_ that he would endure on this quest then he might’ve thrown the damn history book at someone else a long time ago in a far away future and told them to bloody well fill it in themselves, and keep the pen.

Then he might never’ve-

_“You want me to say, ‘I’m sorry?’”_

Rip pulls the bottle of that’lldo closer, swigging directly from it to avoid finishing the thought. Letting the liquid drip through the trellis of his ribs and scald him back into something or nothing, whatever comes first.

He would not, _could not._ Not-thinking had gotten him this far, preserved him in a time capsule of his own making. But Time is never so easily satisfied, always wanting to happen, ever watching and waiting and listening and biding in the dark periphery for opportunity; even if that opportunity takes the form of the sharp bite of mineral-clean alcohol registering in his mind, the unwhiskyness of it causing him to seek the label in confusion.

Rip isn’t a vodka man yet here is a bottle in his hand. Russian stock...1986.

_“There’s always time to steal.”_

A swooping sensation draws the blood from his face into his navel and he feels the suppressed tide of icy water rising in his chest, carrying with it the most significant part of The Thought he’d so desperately tried to avoid:

Sharp blue irises glaring intensely into his mind’s eye, a quick mouth curling slightly at the edges, delicate fingers tapping on a table, the cool hum of roguish rebellion holstered at a hip, the masculine lines of a face and the point of a hairline sharp as silver…

a mind finding something bigger than crime to commit to, an icy heart thawing…

quiet moments in a study, trinkets on a worn desk, unspoken words hanging in the air like gossamer, a smooth rolling thumb, a brash touch...

“ **Simulation successful, Captain Hunter. 152-B is viable**.”

Rip lets out a shuddering breath, like his lungs have been strained against his ribs, wrung of every last drop of air, bleeding out the bitterness to the room, forcing him to draw in something cleansing in return.

He looks to his desk, to the two pots of tea long cold and still, to seek answers, to seek their blessing - one blend light and young, vibrant and bold, never once losing its boyish zest against the savageness of time, the other deep and forbidden, amber brown and homely and sure, smelling of fragrant flowers and tasting of secret kisses, and Rip is ruined in his desolation.

He turns his watery gaze to the third pot, still cooling, but not yet claimed by entropy, the complex greys and tans mulling slowly in the green shimmer of the timestream, a scent of sandalwood lounging in the air, ghosting over his lips.

**"Captain Hunter?"**

"Yes, Gideon."

**“I feel the need to reiterate to you that this strategy isn’t going to save you both.”**

_“It’s not gonna be easy, Captain.”_

He takes another swig of vodka and gets to his steadfast feet, a fresh blazing fire in his chest, reigniting the spark in his eyes, illuminating that green sea of possibility, precisely one final possibility. “Oh I never said it was.”

And Rip turns to the bridge and doesn’t look back except only to briefly, swiftly, and but for a second, amend a previous thought.

For History is not written by the victors, nor by the survivors, but by the ones who dare to tear the pages from the history book and scribble in their stories, the ones who would set fire to the tapestry of victory and rejoice in its charring edges, the ones who would push over the glass cabinet and see its nameless collectibles splinter on the ground for all to see and comprehend and stamp back into the dead sand from whence they came.

 _History is written by Legends,_ he concludes, taking up his pistol and blasting the fragment into dust.

**Author's Note:**

> Find me at [kleptoandpyro.tumblr.com](https://kleptoandpyro.tumblr.com)
> 
> Interested in talking Legends with other writers? Get involved in a DC community where we basically talk ships and fanworks and write fic all day long? Find beta readers and like minded folk?
> 
> Then join us in the [The Flarrowverse Shipyard Discord Server](https://discord.gg/D4RFsRq)! You've got nothing to lose, come get involved!


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